I am not in charge around here.
That isn't, I suppose, completely true, but my kids have always had a tremendous amount of input into what they learn. When our pastor started offering Greek for homeschoolers the boys all jumped at the opportunity. They have taken to it with varying levels of commitment and success, but have all learned quite a bit.
Now they want me to teach them Latin.
Latin.
I've always thought--theoretically--that learning Latin would be a good idea, but none of them have expressed an interest before and I, being somewhat lazy, didn't ever encourage the idea.
But they want Latin, so Latin they shall have. Now I just have to figure out how.
2 comments:
There are games like Rummy Roots that are a way of dipping your toe in the water. Then there are places you can go like http://www.bolchazy.com/
where they sell all sorts of goodies for learning Latin.
I teach junior high Latin at our school (Salem Lutheran in Gretna, LA) - and we have been using Latina Christiana (written by a homeschool mother). It's a good course for young kids, but I find it too slow and boring for junior high kids (as well as the fact that it requires a lot of memorizing - which the young ones do better than the older ones).
Over the summer, I tried a different approach with my summer school kids (the ones that failed Latin). I sed Hans Orberg's Lingua Latina book. Wow! They really did well! The course is really unique in that you learn Latin by reading it (the book has no English in it at all!). It's fun, interesting, and really builds confidence quickly. You can learn about the book and course at www.pullins.com (though the books themselves are cheaper at Amazon).
I learned about this text from a traditionalist homeschool mother. The book really lends itself to self-study and/or homeschooling.
There's also an e-mail list of teachers around the world using Orberg. I also got a nice e-mail recently from Dr. Kellerman (who teaches Latin at Concordia Chicago (formerly River Forest)) telling me that Concordia Chicago recently ditched Wheelock for Orberg!
So, I'm going to be using Orberg for all of my 7th and 8th graders this year. I have high hopes for it.
Bona fortuna!
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